Business of the House

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Valerie Vaz

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. On the question of whether the withdrawal agreement can be amended, I have sitting beside me the shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who has been in discussions with the European Union. We have been in the European Union for more than 40 years, and we know that it would be open to any discussions, such as those that it has held with my right hon. and learned Friend, if that was what was decided. We cannot ignore what our constituents—people of all generations—said to us when they took time out last weekend to tell Parliament exactly what was going on.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

The hon. Lady will recall that the Prime Minister tried to dissuade the House from taking control of the business today by saying that if we did not do this, the Government would allow time for indicative votes to be taken. However, we were never given any details, any clear commitment, or any undertaking that any notice would be taken of those motions. Today, we have an alleged constitutional crisis because the House is setting the business, but if the Government had tabled a motion, an amendment, setting out their own clear proposals for taking the views of the House and discovering what the favoured option was, this whole argument about the process could have been avoided as an irrelevance and we could have resumed the serious business of ensuring that a majority in this House was in support of the Government’s policy being pursued.

[Valerie Vaz]

I cannot follow that, other than to say that I have always admired the right hon. and learned Gentleman, even before I came to this place. I have always been totally in awe of him, and I absolutely agree with what he says.